Rich Jaroslovsky

The first Lark wristband aimed to measure and improve the quality of your sleep. Now the company has introduced a new fitness-tracking band, called Larklife, that aims to do the same for your waking hours.

The last year or so has seen an explosion in this kind of wearable technology, including the Jawbone UP, Nike FuelBand and the just-announced Fitbit Flex. Two things distinguish the $150 Larklife: one positive, the other not so much.

The detachable Lark sensor comes with two wristbands, one for daytime, the other for night. You don't charge the sensor; you charge the wristbands.

They generally need to be juiced up at least every other day or so; in practice, you'll likely always have one of them plugged into the charger while you're wearing the other.

Advertisement

The blue daytime band (other colours are promised later) isn't exactly subtle. It's far bigger than other bands, so be prepared for lots of questions. And because one side of it is thicker, I had a constant problem with sweater and jacket sleeves getting caught on it.

Fumbling Reconnection

When I tugged too hard, the sensor would pull loose from the band, requiring some one-handed fumbling to get it reconnected. Lark says it's aware of the issue and is working on design changes to assure a tighter fit.

The Larklife works with Apple's iPhone via a free app. Though the company is considering a version for Google's Android operating system, none is imminent.

Unlike the Jawbone UP, which requires users to physically connect the band to the iPhone's audio port, the Larklife wirelessly transfers data from device to app. Since I leave Bluetooth activated on my phone all the time, this was largely a seamless process, although there's also a way to manually force a sync via a button on the device if you don't routinely have Bluetooth running.

Simple app

The Larklife app is far less involved than its competitors' – you won't be logging detailed accounts of your meals, for instance. Instead, you'll simply note the time, and select from a limited selection of broad food categories such as "protein" or "grain".

One weakness of most pedometer-based devices is their inability to determine when you're engaged in physical activities that don't involve steps. But the Lark app did successfully recognise my stints on a stationary bike as "activity breaks".

Mostly, though, the emphasis is on coaching and encouragement. Throughout the day, the app would deliver little bits of cheery information – congratulating me on taking my 5000th step of the day, for example – and tips on being more active and increasing my energy.

In the evening, I'd pop the sensor out of the rigid day band and into the soft night one. There's a conundrum here: you should make the switch right before you go to bed, but prepping Larklife for night-use is such a fussy process that you won't want to do it when you're too sleepy.

Sleep settings

Once you're done getting the sensor positioned in the band and the device on your wrist, you have to go into the app to tell it you're going to sleep and press a button on the band to make sure everything is properly sync-ed. (The company says those steps are not always necessary, and plans to revise the manual to let users know.)

In the morning, you have to reverse the process. I sometimes had difficulty getting the data to upload properly; one morning required a half-dozen tries before the data showed up on the iPhone.

Once it did, though, the app told me how quickly I fell asleep, how many times I roused in the night and how long I slept.

I also successfully used its silent-alarm feature, which rouses you by vibrating without bothering a still-sleeping partner.

Unlike competitors, though, it doesn't try to determine the optimal moment to wake you. The company says it's found most users don't want to get up any earlier than they have to, even if the science suggests they'd feel more refreshed being roused sooner in their sleep-cycle.

As a piece of consumer technology, Larklife does a decent job on the tech. But the "consumer" part needs a lot of work.